Saturday, April 11, 2015

Did SeaWorld Send Out 'Social Communism' Trolls With Signs at Protest?

They held a nice protest out in front of SeaWorld Florida in Orlando on Saturday, and some uninvited guests showed up. Actually, they apparently were invited -- by someone associated with SeaWorld.

"Support Social Communism" the signs read. They featured both a Russian hammer and sickle and a Chinese star. Or something like that.

The invitations came with paychecks to go stand among the protesters
with signs that would at once make the protesters look bad and
simultaneously express the company's opinion of the dirty hippies
marching out front.

When Dolphin Project spoke with one of them, the unnamed Communist admitted to “just doing this as a job to make
so extra money.” When we asked him to actually name a communist, he
“couldn’t.”

We also noted that the pre-made sign he was holding was manufactured
in Texas. When we suggested that this might, ” not look good to some,”
should he try to get a job or decide to run for office in 10 years, he
began to hide.

Hey, if I had worn black socks with shorts in public, I would try to hide too.

Via Facebook.

Mind you, the sign carriers never openly admitted to being paid by SeaWorld to stand there with those signs. But who else would do that -- with prefabricated signs made in Texas, no less? Certainly the other protesters had their opinion about whose work the "Social Communists" were engaging.

So, let's check the scoreboard on SeaWorld's continuing attempts to push back against the "Blackfish Effect," the rising tide of anger over the clearing understanding that orca and dolphin captivity constitutes animal cruelty.

Now SeaWorld and its defenders are making clear that the fight over orca and dolphin captivity is becoming your classic Culture War battleground. They're casting their critics into the same basket as LGBT and civil-rights defenders and themselves upon the same pedestal as the geniuses who run Indiana.

Sara Robinson has worked as an editor or columnist for several national magazines, on beats as varied as sports, travel, and the Olympics; and has contributed to over 80 computer games for EA, Lucasfilm, Disney, and many other companies. A native of California's High Sierra, she spent 20 years in Silicon Valley before moving to Vancouver, BC in 2004. She currently is pursuing an MS in Futures Studies at the University of Houston. You can reach her at srobinson@enginesofmischief.com.